


Heart on Your Sleeve, Eyes on the Streets (The Heart-Eyes Remix)

by ApprenticedMagician



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soccer, Demisexuality, M/M, Neil's POV, Oblivious Pining, brief panic attack, obvious pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 12:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21179789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician
Summary: Neil starts a new school year by falling in love with the new kid. Not that he realizes it.





	Heart on Your Sleeve, Eyes on the Streets (The Heart-Eyes Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CasTheButler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasTheButler/gifts), [Nikotheamazingspoonklepto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikotheamazingspoonklepto/gifts).
  * Inspired by [So Keep Your Heart On Your Sleeve (And Keep Your Eyes On The Streets)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16992222) by [CasTheButler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasTheButler/pseuds/CasTheButler). 

> Happy remix, CasTheButler! I hope you don't mind how different this is from your original piece - it only began to ran away with me when I gave myself the bare bones of the high-school-soccer-AU. I loved so much about your fic, which featured a lot of bi!panic going on in Jean's mind; so I decided some demi!confusion was warranted in Neil's. I wish I could have featured Seth, Robin, and Abby as much as you did in yours, but I'm glad they have a place in your fic, where you did them better justice than I think I would have.
> 
> Happy remix also to Nikotheamazingspoonklepto, as the original was written as an exchange gift for you.
> 
> Many thanks to the remix mods, gluupor and fortheloveofcamelot, for their support, time, and dedication to this project.

Neil’s Monday began the way many of his weekdays did – coming downstairs to a family dispute.

“What do you mean we aren’t trying him out?” Andrew muffled out, piehole overstuffed with sugared cereal. “I thought everyone had to tryout.”

“Don’t you know, Andrew?” Aaron drawled, equally as irreverent and gesturing his French toast towards the accused. “You get special treatment when Kevin Day says the sun shines outta your ass.”

“You don’t have to be crass,” Kevin chided, kale smoothie making him sound more sour than usual. “And I never said anything about his ass.”

“We should remedy that,” Nicky suggested, as full of bounce and caffeine as a jackhammering hamster. “He’s played since childhood, right? Paint me a picture, Kevvy.”

That was as much as Neil could take before knowing: “Who’s ass is this?”

“New kid: Jean Val Jean,” Andrew answered, smacking Aaron’s sneaky toast away from his cereal milk.

Neil gaped at Kevin. “You’re selling us out to the cops?! I’ve treated you like a brother.”

Kevin’s jaw unhinged. “Just last night you drew a dick on my face and poured nail polish in my hair!”

To prove his point, there were still trace amounts of dick-ink left on Kevin’s face. But honestly, Kevin should be thanking him – it was obscuring the god-awful face tattoo he had drunkenly gotten over their summer vacation in NYC.

Intruding, Andrew sorely mumbled, “It was _my _nail polish…”

Neil shrugged at both of them. “I thought it was perfume.”

Andrew snapped out a switchblade. Show-off. Kevin screeched, “It was _black!_ And why would you _perfume _my _hair?!?_”

“House rules. You fell asleep during movie night,” Neil justified, ignoring Andrew’s murderous glare and popping down a strawberry pop-tart. 

“_Anyway_,” Aaron mediated, like the saint he was, “Andrew’s sore ‘cause he’s no longer the only person to be offered a starting position without a tryout.”

Neil bunched his brow. “I thought everyone needed to tryout. He’s really that good?”

Kevin huffed, a little ruffled but glad to have the conversation back on track. “Better. He and I played in the same league as kids and he’s kept a starting position with Riko ever since.”

“Impressive," Neil mused. “That’s more than even you can say.”

Kevin shot him a middle finger.

Nicky, who evidently hadn’t been paying attention, took the quiet moment to mumble, “Does that mean Kevin said stuff about Andrew’s ass…?”

“I’ve never said anything about anyone’s ass!”

Neil grinned, mind full of the many, many witticisms he could utter. He saw Andrew mumble something, probably derisive, under his breath to which Aaron chuckled and offered his brother a high five. Andrew accepted gratefully.

Kevin might have kept up his sputtering and hopeless defense if Wymack hadn’t emerged from his room just then. “You kids gonna keep hollerin’ or are you gettin’ ready for school?”

Nicky jumped to attention, ever the one trying to impress ‘Dad’, and began pushing packed lunches in everyone’s hands while making sure their bags were properly supplied. Neil chewed down his pop-tart a little faster – it was the first day after all and he had a new player to check out.

*

So the kid checked out, even after a week of rigorous practice. Neil hadn’t really had doubts about his skill – Kevin took soccer far too seriously to let anything less than perfection skip a public tryout. He was good. _Really _good. Also quick and unafraid of making mistakes or ramming into offense players, a move which Neil was 85% sure had cost them an accidental collision in practice that day.

Allison however, upon reaching her car, hurled her newest Coach bag in the backseat and huffed, “Fucking asshole!”

“Coach?” Neil guessed, easing into the passenger side, eager for their weekly shopping and dish trip. It was one of the many reasons Allison was his favourite girl in the world.

“Don’t be smart with me,” she snapped, arranging her biggest designer sunnies to hide her black eye better.

She had just started the car when Seth jogged up to her door and leaned in through the window.

“Dinner tonight, babe?” he asked, giving a light wave to Neil.

Allison pouted a bit, then poked her puffy eye and grumbled, “Sure, if we can eat without the lights on.”

Seth patted the car somewhat sympathetically. “We’ll work something out. Want me to hold Moreau down so you can give him a shiner back?”

Neil was reminded why they worked so well on their good days. “Later maybe,” she said, sealing it with a quick kiss. Then a command, “Text me.”

Neil didn’t resume their conversation until she had reversed out of the school lot. “I’m pretty sure Jean didn’t mean to hit you.”

Her face hardened again in fury. “Maybe not today, but he certainly meant it last year.”

“When did he hit you last year?”

Allison shot him a glare. “You’ve forgotten our last match against Edgar Allen?”

Honestly, he had done his best to. Edgar Allen was a team of such spoilsports that they never made for a fun or satisfying match, even if Palmetto won. He did his best to think about it now.

“Didn’t we win?” he asked.

“Sure, the _team _won, but _I _couldn’t find a way past #3 for love, life, or money.” This was accompanied by her hands noticeably clenching on the wheel. “#3 who’s just happened to grace our team, in case that passed you by.”

It had, so he was grateful for the clarification. Jean having experience with the Edgar Allen team explained so much concerning his fearless and aggressive play style.

“Well,” he said, feeling he owed Jean one obligatory defense, “at least he’s on our team now.”

“_‘Our team’_, he says.” She clearly disapproved. “You know, if the rumours are right, he swings for the other team.”

He waited for her to follow up the gossip with something further and was disappointed when she didn’t. “Is that the only rumour about him? That he’s gay? So elementary; I’m ashamed of our teenage peers. Everyone’s gay in rumours. Where are the alien abductions? Where’s the father who’s secretly a vampire?”

“I never should have lent you ‘Twilight’,” Allison despaired, picking up speed to make the yellow light.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he agreed.

“Anyway, the real big rumour is that he and Shithead–” that meant Riko, “–have matching tattoos because they began a secret underground cult at Edgar fucking Allen. As though you can make a cult from inside a cult. Morons.”

He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew she was rolling them.

“If Jean has a tattoo, I didn’t see it in the showers.”

Allison slammed hard on the brake, even though she could have made the light, and several loud things happened at once:

The tires squealed, burning and scorching and _bleeding _on the pavement;   
Her bag hurled and jolted the back of his seat, knocking his spine with shudders;  
The seatbelt locked and choked his airway;  
Allison's hand chopped his thigh and she shot him a coy but beaming smile, which fell away the second she saw him.

It was over before he had a chance to take stock of it all, but he could feel the tremble in his shoulders. He shook off the uncomfortable thought that Allison was pleased about his fear but it was slow to leave. She wasn’t sadistic. He knew that.

He did.

She did too, by the looks of things. Everything about her gentled, the hand on his leg affectionately began to pet him as she soothed, “Sorry, Abe. I wasn’t thinking.”

The use of the nickname he reserved for her did more to help than her touch. It put him in a time and place, reminded him his company was safe - or at least benevolent, when his mind didn't believe him. He laid a hand overtop hers, stopping its movement. “It's all good, Al,” he lied.

“You sure?”

He took a deep breath, shaking off the rest of his ghosts. “Positive,” which was less of a lie.

“I got overexcited. You never talk about peeping on guys in the showers.” She threw an exaggerated wink, likely to tease him back into their natural rapport. It worked wonders but that didn’t mean he appreciated the subject.

He fiddled with his seat’s sun visor to get out of defending himself. So what if his eyes happened to be looking where Jean had been as he dressed himself? Neil knew he hadn’t been doing it out of any kind of attraction because he didn’t swing that way. Or any way, really. Sex and kissing and body pleasures were about as interesting as walking on hot coals – sure, one _could_ do it but why bother? Seemed a perfectly good way to complicate daily life, if you asked him. And besides, it wasn’t like his gaze had followed Jean out the door afterwards.

No, sirree. His eyes had instead been tracking a fly that had found its way into the locker room. A completely coincidental path, aligning somewhat with the sway of a Frenchman’s backside. Plus shoulders. And calves.

“Are you thinking about a naked man, Neil Josten?”

She cackled when he shoved her shoulder. “Keep driving, Reynolds.”

*

Okay. So maybe he _had _been glancing Jean’s way that day in the locker room because it wasn’t normal otherwise for Neil to shop with Allison for sweaters and come away buying one the exact the colour of Jean’s skin. (He had worn it to school the day after, just to compare them side by side in Social Studies. The confirmation only made him wonder how the sweater measured up in softness, for it was incredibly soft – the sweater, that is.)

But that didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like he had messed up any practice drills because he was too busy staring across the field to see how Jean was melding with the other Foxes. Kevin had made Neil assistant captain because Neil equaled his dedication to the game and this team – nothing was more important than their standings.

Especially not a temporary distraction. Which is what this whole thing was.

Temporary.

And a distraction.

*

Nothing quite beat the uniform crescendo of a roaring crowd when a goal narrowly missed its mark. Palmetto’s defense this season was superior to nearly every other school in their sector – Jean had made his mark in more than being just another body on the field. Around two months into schooling, he had offered some suggestions of drills and plays that Coach let him lead. Some of them, Allison had been familiar with, having played against them the whole year before. With her help, Jean and the rest had tweaked them into being stronger than ever.

Of course, even if the defense improvements hadn’t happened, Andrew had yet to let three goals past him this season. There was a reason he had skipped tryouts as well.

Neil was hooting and clapping with the crowd as Aaron traded off with Matt and threw himself on the bench next to Neil, who passed along Aaron’s water bottle.

“He’s doing well!” Neil enthused, slapping Aaron’s shoulder and jostling the poor man away from a gulping drink.

Aaron, sweaty, focussed, and dehydrated, merely heaved out, “Who?”

“Jean!” Neil yelled, pointing out the defender on the field, standing nearly four inches above anyone who wasn’t Kevin or Matt. “Millport might have made it past you in the last play if it wasn’t for him and his long legs.”

Aaron tossed him first a glare and then a finger, accurately assuming Neil was making a crack at his height. “Fuck you and your leg kink.”

“Aww,” Neil cooed, “sad you can’t compete?”

Aaron shot water in his face. Beneath Neil’s laughter, Aaron muttered, “He can have you. And take you far, far away.”

Neil ignored Aaron’s sore remark. The twins’ tempers were famously shorter than they were but he never worried about angering them – yes, they were quick runners and could pace themselves alongside him on their good days, but shortness was also a quality of their endurance. If he had to run, he’d survive.

He turned the conversation back to Jean with a final dig, “If he keeps playing like that, Andrew won’t need to keep joining you for cardio.”

Then he was cheering again because Jean stole the ball from Millport’s feet again. Unnoticed, Aaron leveled his best friend a considering look, as if a strange theory had begun to take shape in his mind.

*

It wasn’t before _every_ Friday practice that the family stopped at Sweetie’s, but the way Kevin carried on about it, you’d think it was. No one ever bothered to point out he always ordered a (hypocritical) hazelnut frappuccino, since the longer he went without sucking it down, the longer they all had to hear about their ill-made life choices. It was a long speech, especially now as they approached the mid-year, inter-high league.

Andrew was putting in the usual order, already passing over the usual amount of exact change, when all of a sudden:

“And one scoop of pineapple sorbet, please. In a cup is fine,” Neil added, tossing a few bills atop the ones Andrew was already handing over. When he noticed the family giving him a collective stare, he bristled out, “What?”

“Did I hear you right,” Nicky asked, “or did you just place an order?”

Neil repeated back dumber sounds. The cashier didn’t pay any mind to the supposedly momentous occurrence, counting change and passing it to a limp-handed Andrew who blandly accused, “I heard it too, you ordered a sweet.”

Honestly? They didn’t have to be such accusatory assholes about it. It wasn’t like he was poisoning the lot of them. “I can like sweet,” Neil defended.

Aaron laughed twice. “And I can like dick,” he said.

“Difference is you’ve tried dick,” Andrew chimed in.

“You have?!” Nicky lurched, turning to his straight(er) cousin. “Whose?”

“The wolfman’s,” Aaron said, unashamed and unabashed. “At Seth’s Halloween bash last year.”

Neil made a noise and a face, reminded all-too harshly of ‘Twilight’ and other embarrassing horrors from past Halloweens. Seth’s parties were always open invites and every person underage knew that attending meant free booze. Hearing this story now was enough to convince him he wouldn’t be attending this year’s party.

“Ew,” Nicky judged. “You sucked a werewolf’s dick?”

“Wasn’t gonna let him suck mine – he had fangs in his mouth.”

“Have a sweet day,” the cashier dryly interrupted, passing their tray and waving at them all to move on. Neil yoinked his sorbet with a flourish and lead the march back to Andrew’s Maserati. He could feel the others watching him, so Neil made sure his spoonfuls were extra large. Sheer spite ensured he didn’t gag from the sweetness.

He hadn’t finished half of it by the time they made it to the field, but that was fine. He had come prepared with a plan after all.

“Jean!” he called, jogging ahead of his family to where the boy was performing some warm-up stretches. His hair was still smooth, Neil passively noticed. Not at all curly and damp like it would be after running practice for a few hours.

Jean waved as Neil approached and greeted him while still trying to reach his toes.

Neil lightly shook the remainder of his sorbet. “Need an incentive?”

“What for? Beating the Ravens is all the incentive I need.” Jean smiled up at him, secure in the knowledge that his rivalry was a shared sentiment. It was a common topic of conversation between them.

“A gift then,” Neil tried, feeling his ears begin to flush for no reason at all. “As a reward for going above and beyond with us so far.”

Jean rose up and considered both Neil and his offering. Neil felt so… exposed. Which wasn’t usually a nice feeling for him. But it was now. Well, no it wasn’t, but it wasn’t because he was afraid of it. He tried not to fidget.

“Thanks,” Jean said softly, taking the half-eaten treat and trying a spoonful. Neil flushed upon realizing he hadn’t grabbed a second spoon. Stupid thing to forget. (Stupid thing to blush about.)

But then Jean’s eyes lit up in surprise. “Pineapple?” He said, in his lilting accent.

Neil coughed to rid himself of the lump in his throat. Strange. He’d never allergically reacted to pineapple before. “Your favourite, right?”

“Yes! Next to strawberry, perhaps.” Its second-place ranking didn’t seem to matter though, as Jean began digging in, humming the whole way through. He licked the spoon clean in between every bite. It was a lot more tongue than Neil had been expecting.

“Neil!” Kevin barked, startling Neil out of whatever had frozen his feet while Jean ate sorbet. (With his spoon. His tongue had been on that spoon.)

“Talk later, I guess,” Neil offered, leaving towards their grumpy, sugared-up captain.

Jean nodded and lifted the cup, saying, “Thanks for the pineapple!”

When Neil reached his family and their equipment bags, it took him a second to notice them all staring weirdly at him. Nicky was nearly vibrating and wearing a hard grin that wasn’t helping him keep a pitchy noise to himself.

“Neil!” He crowed, looking for all the world like a mother who witnessed her child take her first steps.

“What?” He snapped, unhappy to be left out of some communal understanding.

“Why didn’t you tell us you had a crush?!” Nicky proudly beamed.

Neil flinched back. Violently. “A _what_?!”

Nicky paid him no mind. “And on a _boy, _no less! I mean, it’s a tad cliché to cozy up to the new kid, but that doesn’t mean I’m not _ecstatic_.”

“Shut up, Nicky,” the twins said, both noticing how Neil was backing away from them.

“This doesn’t make him gay,” Aaron added, quick as always to smooth over Nicky’s dramatics.

“Moreover,” Andrew said, interrupting whatever Nicky’s argument was, “none of it is any of your business until Neil involves you.” And again, before Nicky could make a sound of protest, “That means he _tells _you, rather than you jumping to conclusions.”

Neil could have hugged the twins and he might have if he was feeling at all like getting a knife in his ribs. Which actually might be the perfect way out of an afternoon where Nicky pestered and interrogated him about something that _wasn’t happening._

Was it?

“Nicky,” Kevin said, choosing a side, “you’ll be partnered with Renee for drills today. Make sure she runs all her laps. Neil, with me.”

It couldn’t be a crush that was affecting Neil. Something a little more infectious. Viral. Some sort of bacteria that had his heart pounding before he had even begun to practice. Some sort of wary survival behaviour making his eyes stray to Jean at each quiet moment.

…Oh, _fuck._

*

The twins’ birthday party presented too good an opportunity to pass up. Besides, it was Saturday and Neil was feeling happy, buzzy, and kind of fuzzy-wuzzy.

So he snuck up behind Jean, who perched nervously on their stairs, and yelled, “Not like your usual parties, is it?”

Jean swore in French and jumped, sloshing some of the drink out of his red cup and falling to the next stair. Neil grinned, noticing they were finally the same height and took a drink from his own cup to celebrate.

Coughing away his embarrassment, Jean asked, “My usual parties?”

“Aaron and I snuck into an Edgar Allen banquet once,” he explained. “Got thrown out right quick when we realized there was a fancy dress code. All black-tie and red ribbon…”

Speaking of dress, Neil gave Jean a careful look up and down, somehow surprised not to see him armed with a blazer or pressed pinstripe pants. Instead, Jean was dressed in dark jeans and his simple unpattered shirts were layered, which wasn’t exactly on par with every other Fox and Vixen attending but was a step towards a more casual air. The sober part of Neil’s brain wondered if Jean would need to be taken by the hand – which meant be taken hostage by Nicky, Allison, or Andrew – in order to find a decent pair of ripped black jeans. The drunk part of Neil’s brain knew Nicky owned enough sheer and glimmery shirts that he wouldn’t miss one or two if Neil decided they needed repossessing. Which was no less than Nicky deserved, quite honestly, for planting this _stupid _‘crush’ idea nonsense into Neil’s brain.

Jean was hopelessly still stuck on the conversation happening outside Neil’s brain. “Those parties weren’t always stuffy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, drinking his punch.

“Wasn’t thinking they were _stuffy,_” he said slyly, giggling when he noticed the room tilting a bit.

Exactly what word he _had _been thinking was, he was quite sure, written all over his smirking face. And evidently Jean could read, because he was crossing his arms and huffing his cheeks when he defensively said, “We played ‘Spin the Bottle’ almost every time.”

Neil burst into cackles, loud enough to startle Robin and Renee who were closest to the landing. Mockingly, he pronounced, “’Ow _risqué, _monsieur!”

Jean’s face began to flush and Neil assumed it wasn’t from hearing his terrible accent – two semesters of last year’s French class had taught him nothing. Jean was trying to say something, probably equally as embarrassing as his last statement, and Neil saved him from himself by saying, “Unluckily for you, Mr. Smooch, you won’t ever find us Foxes playing that. Well, not here. Too many of us live under this roof to lock lips, even accidentally.”

It was true. Just the thought of kissing any of his in-house ‘brothers’ sent a shudder through his shoulders. ‘Course, now that he was thinking about it (and still fuzzy-wuzzy drunk), Nicky’d probably be the best kiss out of the bunch, but Neil hated the idea of involving himself any further in Nicky’s day-to-day drama and exuberance. Besides, rationalized sober-Neil’s brain cell, Nicky had _just about _worked up the nerve to ask out the captain and star player of the Breckenridge team, Erik Klose, and Nicky really didn’t need any help finding cowardly excuses.

Speaking of…

The hand Neil thought he had free was entangled in Jean Moreau’s dark tresses, right at the base of his skull, where it curled most. Neil didn’t know when it had got there and he didn’t know why he wasn’t stopping. Jury might be out on the skin, but Jean’s hair was definitely softer than a sweater.

…Why was he thinking about a sweater??

“Down here with the peasantry,” he said, softly so as not to overly startle him(self), “we don’t use bottles to choose who we should kiss.”

Jean… leaned in? Neil thought he had leaned in. So Neil leaned in and hitched his breath.

But then Jean was pulling himself away, untangling Neil’s fingers from his hair and striding down the stairs, muttering some excuse about needing a new drink and suddenly Neil was left standing alone. Feeling empty.

He wasn’t feeling so fuzzy-wuzzy anymore.

*

They hadn’t talked since then. Jean and himself. Which for some reason felt like a brick had settled inside his chest and another in his stomach. He skipped practice the next week, leaving his backpack and equipment behind in the locker room with a note for his brothers to take it home with them, and then just jogged home, even though it was a forty-minute drive with Andrew at the wheel.

It didn’t help clear his mind as much as he wanted it to. So after trying it twice more, he gave up and went back to the field with everyone else, but he didn’t watch Jean anymore.

Maybe he had been right this whole time. Whether crush or distraction… it had truly been temporary.

And now it was over.

Done with.

That’s certainly how Neil felt, everywhere he went now: done. His grades were slipping, even in math because he wasn’t paying attention to the lessons anymore. The cheering crowds at their games failed to inspire his participation. Home wasn’t as rambunctious a place when he spent all day laying in bed, away from everyone’s concerned looks and whispered arguments.

Even Allison was getting miffed about being stood up for their shopping dates. When he hadn’t been able to offer a reason, she backed down a little, and nodded sagely while saying, “Heartbreak. Been there.” He watched a movie with her and Seth that night but he didn’t remember much of it.

Running extra drills with Kevin was just about the only thing that made his brain shut up enough. But he couldn’t keep that up forever. Worse, Kevin couldn’t keep up with him. After three days of two hours extra work, Kevin tapped out, lecturing about the dangers in overworking the body and refusing it rest.

None of it reached him.

*

They finally got their rematch with Edgar Allen when Neil woke up. Not because it was the game they had been waiting for all season. Not because the rush of the game had come back and restarted his heart – no.

The fog that had clouded him for weeks lifted with a single dirty hit from the Ravens. Not to himself, but to Jean.

From across the field, Neil had heard the impact, had seen the distance Jean’s body flew from his position, felt the wind surge out of Jean’s lungs as he was crushed between cooling December ground and the player that had tackled him.

Neil _raced _and he didn’t stop until he had caught the offender – ‘Johnson’ read his jersey – and spun him off of Jean, who was gasping for air and clutching the knee he had landed on.

“You piece of shit!” Neil yelled, amazed at himself for not resorting to punches. A crowd was gathering around Jean; referees, Coach, and teammates alike. A handful were closing in on Neil, hands reaching out to loosen his hold, which made it tighten viciously. It took three people to pry him off Johnson, spouting curses at him all the while which Neil returned twofold.

He had never felt so angry. Never taken a teammate’s injury so personally. Johnson spit on the ground at Neil’s feet, glaring fire, and Neil knew right then and there that the hit had been personal and calculated. What kind of team purposely injured an old friend? Jack was shit in the shape of a human and Neil still wouldn’t entertain the idea of hurting him, no matter where he saw him on a soccer field.

“Scum!” He shouted, irrationally trying to break forward and reconsider his punching idea. “Fucking asshole! He was your teammate!”

“**Josten!**” roared Coach, which barely subdued his rage. “Get your ass to the showers! You’re benched!” And when he took Neil by the scruff of his neck to physically drag him over there, he added, no less forcefully, “Stay with Moreau until Dobson knows what’s what with him. You wanna be his hero? He’s your responsibility. Now _move._”

Neil barely held in every shrill profanity that cycled in his head, which calmed a little when he reached Jean. It was only because he knew Jean wouldn’t appreciate it while he couldn’t leave – a rivalry connected them but shit-talking the Raven players had always made Jean uncomfortable, enough that he’d often remove himself from the conversation.

“Think you’ll live?” Neil grumbled, as angry and sharp as he’d been with Johnson. Jean didn’t quiver away from it though. He seemed rather relaxed at seeing the icy expression Neil knew had to be gracing his Wesninski features.

“Johnson’s a soft-touch,” Jean wheezed, hoarse from lacking air. “Couldn’t bring down a fly.”

“Fucking coward,” Neil spat, venomous. “Cheating snake. Who decided they’d be called ‘ravens’.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Jean replied, “The ‘Edgar Allen Snakes’ wouldn’t have the same ageless, menacing ring to it. They’re going for intimidation, not accuracy.”

Neil grumbled something about hoping they’d all choke. Jean stuttered out a laugh and the nurse, Dobson, finally settled down to make her examination. Sometime in the middle of it, Neil found Jean’s hand in his and it cooled down his tantrum significantly. He was pleased when a new warmth replaced it.

It was still there the next day, along with the feeling of Jean’s sweaty, callused palm.

*

Christmas Eve. Dan’s party. Mistletoe.

Neil didn’t understand when Aaron brought him over to a bashful Jean, dressed in the ripped jeans Allison had found him and the ugly Christmas sweater Matt had gifted him for Christmas.

“Your choice,” Aaron reminded him, patting Neil’s back before leaving to rejoin the party in the other room.

Neil felt hot in his soft, cream sweater. The festive lights around Dan’s living room were doing incredible things to Jean’s eyes. “What’s up?” he asked, too stupid to think of anything else to say.

“I couldn’t find you a gift,” Jean blurted, eyes darting back and forth. “Felt bad.”

Oh. Well… “You don’t have to get me a gift.”

Jean nodded, then took a deep breath. “What if the gift… was me…?” His eyes, so careful, flicked up to meet Neil’s, which must be rounded with surprise.

Neil looked up. They were under a doorway, hung with mistletoe. The sweater Matt had given him, was decorated with a large wrapped present, complete with a 3-D bow. The pants which made no sense to wear in -21 degree weather.

It was utterly cheesy. They were officially _cheesy teenagers._

Neil was grinning too hard to care. His heart was fluttering. “What do I get to do with you?”

Jean clearly had ideas by the way he gulped. “Kiss me, to start?”

That sounded _excellent. _

It felt even _better, _reaching up for Jean’s hair, bringing him close and then _closer;_ soft lips moving in soft pulses, warm breath brushing his skin, all sense being drawn out of him like water through a sieve.

It ended when a champagne bottle shot off and the two of them were suddenly doused in foamy bubbles, waking up to the cheers and congratulations of all their friends. But Neil didn’t want to pay them attention right now.

So he drew Jean’s eyes back to his, and offered his lips back to his. Let the others drink and toast the culmination of their – mutual – crush. Neil needed his mouth for more important things.

And it felt like walking on hot coals.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
